This invention relates generally to methods for altering a cinematic work by substituting a second animated facial display for a first or presently existing animated facial display in the work and in which the displays have lip movements corresponding to the languages used by the actors and wherein the languages of the two displays are sufficiently different to result in different lip and/or other facial movements for each display.
The present invention is intended to avoid the simple "dubbed in" effect wherein the lip movements do not agree with the dialogue. Thus, the invention is particularly applicable for replacing the sound track of a motion picture with a new sound track of a different language while also modifying the lip movements of the actors in the picture to correspond to the new language to be applied to the sound track. The invention is applicable to works using live actors as well as for animated cartoons.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,260,229 granted Apr. 7, 1981, there is shown and described a system and method wherein predetermined visual images such as lip movements are graphically created to correspond with speech sounds so that when the visual images and speech sounds are recorded on film, video tape or other media the presentation to the listener or viewer will be that of lip movements corresponding to the language being used and for that reason will make the cinematic work more real and interesting.
In the system of the foregoing patent speech sounds are analyzed, digitally encoded and transmitted to a computer. Stored within the computer is a program for producing output data that creates visual images of lip movements corresponding to the speech sounds. Under control of the data for the speech sounds, the graphical output from the computer is sent to a graphic output device and related display equipment to produce the graphical display which may be combined with speech sounds so that resultant audio-visual display contains lip movements corresponding to the speech sounds.